Hybrid Regimes within Democracies: Fiscal Federalism and Subnational Rentier States
From the racially segregated 'Jim Crow' US South to the many electoral but hardly democratic local regimes in Argentina and other federal democracies, the political rights of citizens around the world are often curtailed by powerful subnational rulers. Hybrid Regimes within Democracies: Fiscal Federalism and Subnational Rentier States (Cambridge University Press, 2018) by former PhD Fellow Carlos Gervasoni builds on doctoral research conducted with Kellogg Institute support and presents the first comprehensive study of democracy and authoritarianism in all the subnational units of a federation. Focusing on Argentina, the book also compares seven other federations including Germany, Mexico, and the United States. The in-depth and multidimensional description of subnational regimes in all Argentine provinces is complemented with an innovative explanation for the large differences between those that are democratic and those that are 'hybrid' – complex combinations of democratic and authoritarian elements. Putting forward and testing an original theory of subnational democracy, Gervasoni extends the rentier-state explanatory logic from resource rents to the more general concept of 'fiscal rents', including 'fiscal federalism rents', and from the national to the subnational level. Gervasoni will introduce the normative motivations, connections to the literature, main empirical findings, and policy implications of the book, while Kellogg discussants Michael Coppedge, Scott Mainwaring and Virginia Oliveros will offer commentary.
Michael Coppedge, Professor of Political Science, Kellogg Faculty Fellow
Carlos Gervasoni, Associate Research Professor, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella; Former Kellogg PhD Fellow
Scott Mainwaring, Eugene P. and Helen Conley Professor of Political Science, Kellogg Faculty Fellow
Virginia Oliveros, Associate Professor of Political Science, Tulane University; Kellogg Visiting Fellow
Moderated by Aníbal Pérez-Liñán, Professor of Political Science and Global Affairs, Kellogg Faculty Fellow
Copies of the book will be available for purchase after the panel.
Carlos Gervasoni
Carlos Gervasoni is an associate research professor in the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Argentina. He specializes in studies of democracy, federalism, subnational politics, public opinion, and the methodology of social research...
Michael Coppedge
Michael Coppedge is professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, where he is a faculty fellow of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. His research interests include democratization and the quality of democracy; Latin American parties and party systems; Venezuelan politics; and comparative politics methodology. He has been a Kellogg Institute faculty fellow since 1995...
Scott Mainwaring
Scott Mainwaring is the Eugene P. and Helen Conley Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. He is also a faculty fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, where he previously served as director for 13 years and an Advisory Board member from 2017-2023. He has been a Kellogg Institute faculty fellow since 1983...
Virginia Oliveros
This profile was current as of 2020, when she was part of the on-campus Kellogg community. Virginia Oliveros is an associate professor of political science and an associate research fellow at the Center for Inter-American Policy and Research and the Roger Thayer Stone Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane University...